A fellow teacher librarian and friend, Ronda Hughes (@RondaHughes10), and I had been brainstorming for quite some time about the possibility of doing a connected book club via Skype. The more we talked about it the more we felt we just had to try it. She told me a two different titles of books she had ordered through Book Depot, and we decided on the one we felt would be the best with which to start. I placed my book order for Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff for our 4th grade students. We set the date, she created the schedule, and we began. I have to say that it has been so much fun!
Each week, Mrs. Hughes and I take turns leading the book club and we each have nine students participating. Since she is at a larger school, her students have to apply to get into their book clubs, but our school is so small we ended up having the entire grade participate. We scheduled our meetings so that we would have one a week for four weeks. This week will be the last time we meet. During our time that we are together, students will discuss the characters, connections made to the books, reactions, setting, predictions, favorites. The students have absolutely loved this! Not only do they love the book Absolutely Almost, but they love being able to connect with students at another school in another town to share about the book and get to know one another. Our students have not really participated in anything like this before now. They have not done a book club so this has been a great opportunity and experience for them. Each week they look forward to coming to the library to meet with their new friends. I have enjoyed seeing so many of the "aha!" moments and hearing the connections that have been made with the book. It lets me know that they are truly reading, analyzing, and understanding the text. My students have been making lists of what they want to talk about with the other class. We have discovered there is never enough time to fit it all in. Since my students had not done a book club in general or anything like this before, they weren't sure exactly what to expect or do. I will say that they caught on quickly and have shown so much growth. They were ready to rock and roll last week, but we had some technological difficulties so we had to cut the meeting shorter than we wanted. Next year, Mrs. Hughes and I hope to do more connected book clubs with more grade levels. I would like to connect with other classrooms even internationally to do a book club. If you are interested, please let me know! Follow me on Twitter- @msclift or use the contact me option.
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Kimee ReedI am a Teacher Librarian that believes in out of the box experiences to make learning fun, inspire, encourage, excite, and empower students. Archives
June 2018
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